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RACES AND THEIR FUTURE! 

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J. 0. A.‘ CLARK, D. D., LL. D., 

Editor of iK ,The Wesley Memorial Volume and Author of 
l: Elijah Vindicated: or , The Answer by Fire.” 


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THE 


Races and their Future : 

-A. PLEA 

■ FOR THEIR EDUCATION. 


✓ IB ' sr 

J. 0. A. CLARK, D. D., L L. D., 

Editor of The Wesley Memorial Volume, and Author of Elijah 
Vindicated : or, The Answer by Fire. 

\ — 




l 


NGTO^' 


Nobisque, liberisque, patriceque, et omnia Deo. 




MACON, GEORGIA : 

J. W. BURKE A CO., PRINTERS, STEREOTYPERS AND BINDERS. 

1889. 





Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 
J. W. BURKE & CO., 


In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 


PREFACE. 


This discourse, prepared without notes, was deliv- 
ered at various places in Georgia. At no time did it 
contain all in this published address. Now one point 
would be more or less elaborated ; now it might be 
merely mentioned, or even omitted. Hence its state- 
ments were sometimes misunderstood, and incorrectly 
reported. To place them on record has determined 
the author to put them into print. But this is not 
the only reason. Many have urged publication, 
believing that a wider circulation will result in good. 
Besides, the author has been invited and solicited 
to deliver the address in many places to which 
he cannot go. These considerations, and the assurance 
that it has accomplished good wherever it has been 
delivered, have influenced him to give it to the public. 
The Nannie Lou Warthen, or Sandersville District 
High School, at Wrightsville, in Johnson county, 
other High Schools, and schools of lesser grade, re- 
ceived new inspiration from it. It called attention to 
the neglected whites in the country outside of the 
cities. The increase of illiteracy among the poorer 
whites and the rapid growth of education among the 


11 ) 


preface. 


blacks, the very scanty provision for the education 
of the former and the very liberal provision for the 
education of the latter — which the facts of the discourse 
established — aroused a j>rofounder interest in the edu- 
cation of the poor whites of the State. In the hope 
that this address may direct liberality to them, and 
that it may lead to the endowment of the Sandersville 
District High School, and similar schools, and give 
free education to the poor whites of very poor districts, 
the author sends it forth, praying the blessing of 
Almighty God upon all our educational work, upon 
all the children of Georgia, white and colored. 

The author has no thought that all his suggestions 
will be approved j but this makes no difference, pro- 
vided the whites now indifferent to education are 
thoroughly aroused to its importance, and provided 
the State insures ample facilities for all her children. 
He is no stickler for specific details ; he is for what- 
ever will soonest supply the present need. He has 
long since learned that the best schemes are often 
defeated by obstinately adhering or objecting to cer- 
tain details, which might be surrendered without 
damage. Losing sight of the main purpose, these are 
urged or combatted with such pertinacity as to defeat 
the whole. The greatest obstacle to the cause of edu- 
cation, in many places in Georgia, has been the want 
of unanimity, and the absence of the spirit of compro- 


PREFACE. 


v 


mise. Many a neighborhood is without a school, 
because the patrons cannot agree on its location, its 
teacher, its books, or its methods of instruction and 
discipline. Sooner than give up their individual 
preferences, they will only agree to disagree, though 
they leave their children to illiteracy and ignorance. 
A like fault is found in the Senate Chamber and in the 
Representative Hall of the State. Broad statesman- 
ship is often defeated by sticklers for, or objectors to, 
some insignificant detail. 

J. O. A. CLARK. 

Macon, Georgia, 

January 17th, 1SS9. 


Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in 
your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign 
upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between 
your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, 
speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and 
when thou walkest by the way, when thou best down, 
and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them 
upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy 
gates ; that your days may be multiplied, and the days 
of your children, in the land which the Lord sware 
unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven 
upon the earth. — Deut. XL , 18-21. 

Train up a child in the way he should go ; and 
when he is old, he will not depart from it. 

Prov. XXII., 6 . 


THE RACES AND THEIR FUTURE. 


No animal comes into the world more helpless than 
man. Left to himself the infant must soon die. He 
seems to possess neither moral nor intellectual powers. 
And yet he has capacities, whose development is the 
work of education. This development cannot be 
defined by metes and bounds. It may go on indefi- 
nitely here and hereafter. But we may have some 
conception of the development of the moral powers, 
when we consider the difference between the worst and 
best of the human race — between the blood thirsty 
Nero and the cruel Caligula and the phylanthropists 
Howard and Wilberforce, between the traitor Judas 
and the apostate Julian and the Seraphic Isaiah and 
the beloved St. John. And we may have some idea of 
the possible development of the intellectual powers 
when we suggest the difference between the helpless, 
puling infant and Sir Isaac Newton. And yet, when 
Sir Isaac compared his own knowledge with the 
unknown and the knowable, he likened himself to a 
child sporting on the beach, gathering here and there 
a few bright pebbles, while the great, unfathomed, 
exhaustless ocean [of truth lay \ stretched out in 
limitless space beyond. When we conjecture the pos- 
sibilities of the human soul restored to the image of 
God in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness ; 
when we remember the dominion which God has given 
to man over the works of his Almighty hands, we can 


8 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


only wonder, and admire, and exclaim with the Psalm- 
ist : “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? 
and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor.’ ’ 

This conception of the soul’s possibilities is immeas- 
urably enlarged by the thought that its room for 
growth is unbounded in time and eternity. The abso- 
lute and the infinite in knowledge and holiness are the 
Creator’s ; the relative and comparative, the creature’s. 
Hence the distance in knowledge and holiness between 
the Creator and the creature is infinite ; and hence 
there is for the latter infinite room for growth. Cher- 
ubim and seraphim, angel and archangel, first born 
sons of light — how or when created in the eternity past, 
we know not — vail their faces in his presence, in whose 
sight even the heavens are unclean. To the redeemed 
soul, created anew in Christ Jesus, following holiness, 
and going on unto perfection, there is no sublimer 
thought than the thought it is made a partaker of the 
Divine nature, and will have before it an eternity of 
being— endless cycles of ages— in which it will be 
growing more and more like God. Its loftiest aspira- 
tion, in time and in eternity, will be, “Nearer, nearer, 
my God, to thee.” 

But, while' we are assured by the word of God that 
these are the possibilities of the redeemed, we are 
equally assured by the same word that the unbelieving 
and the wicked must wax worse and worse, wandering 
through eternal cycles further and further away from 
God and his purity. How infinite the distance 
between the zenith of heaven and the nadir of hell $ 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


9 


between Michael, the archangel, who, in the presence 
of the Beatific Vision, forever stands before the 
throne, beholding the King in his beauty, and Lucifer, 
the fallen, thrust down to hell, and shut up in the 
blackness of darkness forever and ever ! 

When we reflect on these capabilities- and possibili- 
ties of the soul, is there any wonder that the great 
Jewish lawgiver, after having talked with God and 
beheld his glory in the mount, when about to leave the 
people of whom he was the divinely appointed leader, 
gathering them around him for the last time, solemnly 
charged them to lay up the words of God in their heart 
and in their soul, and diligently teach them to their 
children ? And is there any wonder that the wisest of 
men, knowing how the future of the child depends on 
his early training, has said : “ Train up a child in the 
way he should go; and when he is old, he will not 
depart from it!” This is a Bible precept and a Bible 
promise which the Lord God has joined together in holy 
wedlock. Wherefore let no one put them asunder, lest 
the curse and wrath of the Almighty fall heavily on 
his daring presumption and unbelief. 

The intellectual, moral and religious education of the 
child is a parental obligation of divinest sanction. The 
future of the child God has placed in the keeping of 
the parent. Hence, the parental is the greatest of 
responsibilities. Train up a child in the way he shoul d 
go, is the precept ; when he is old he will not depart 
from it, is the promise. Upon obedience or disobe- 
dience to the precept, and upon belief or unbelief in 
the promise, may hang the destiny of the child for 
weal or woe. The little immortal entrusted to the 


10 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


parent’s care and discipline will either be a blessing 
or a curse, a saint in heaven or a lost spirit in hell. 
Whether it be the one or the other rests mainly, ye 
fathers and mothers, on the training you give your 
children while their minds and hearts are young, 
impressible, and easy to be acted upon by influences 
from within and without. But while the obligation is 
binding upon both parents, the future of the child is 
more what the mother than what the father has made 
it. Let Hannah the mother of Samuel, and Eunice 
the mother of Timothy, and Monica the mother of St. 
Augustine, and Anthusa the mother of St. Chrysos- 
tom, and Susannah the mother of the Wesleys, incite 
every Christian mother to obedience to the precept 
and to faith in the promise. 

The issues involved in the education of the young 
are of stupendous import, affecting our highest and 
best interests in Church and State. All interests the 
most valuable — the.material, moral, religious, individ- 
ual, social, and national — wane or wax as education is 
neglected or fostered. Illiteracy and ignorance - to 
say nothing of irreligion and infidelity — are fruitful 
parents of idleness, drunkenness, lawlessness, vice 
and crime. The State cannot prosper if its citizens 
are illiterate and ignorant. Beligion itself has no sure 
basis unless founded on education. All healthful reli- 
gious growth depends on the Word of God, and very 
largely on the ability to read and understand it. To 
the illiterate the Bible is a sealed book ; by them its 
teachings are known only as communicated by others. 
The truest and best knowledge — the divine and the 
supernatural— is open to the illiterate only as it is dealt 
out by those who have access to the fountain. 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


11 


Wherefore, if these things be so, what greater or 
more important duty than the education of children ? 
what obligation more paramount? what one more 
pregnant with results to parents and children? And 
yet how comparatively little is the obligation felt ! 
how imperfectly is its importance viewed by many ! 
how it is neglected, and even disregarded by thous- 
ands? how little is it understood? and yet how compre- 
hensive the saying —the education of children ! When we 
speak of their education , we mean not only all implied 
etymologically in the word, but all embraced in its 
synonyms — instruction, teaching, breeding — drawing 
forth, developing, and disciplining the physical, moral 
and mental powers, forming and moulding character, 
fortifying the heart with right principles and right 
affections, quickening and enlightening the conscience, 
imparting knowledge, shaping and regulating the hab- 
its and the manners, training for duty to God and duty 
to man, for a life of responsibility, activity, and use- 
fulness. But while this is so, while education, in all 
of its bearings, is the most vital of questions, the pur- 
pose of this discourse is to speak particularly of a neg- 
lect of it which touches most nearly the South, and 
especially Georgia, which is now productive of great 
evil, and which, unles corrected, will be productive of 
much greater. I can best let you know what this evil 
is by telling some things which came under my own 
observation. 

One summer day, as I was riding through one of the 
counties in Eastern Georgia, I saw, while passing a 
farm house, a healthy, hale and strong man seated on 
a fence under the shade of a tree, idly whittling a 


12 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


stick, or employed in some other trifle. On the 
other side of the fence, and within the field, were that 
man’s wife and two grown-up daughters, shabbily 
dressed, busily engaged in weeding the growing 
crop. A little beyond was a white girl child not 
more than eleven years old, in equally shabby gar- 
ments, following the unsteady plow with toddling 
steps. 

I do not mention this because I condemn labor — far 
from it ; I honor it — or because I think that no part of 
field work is suitable for woman. I remember that 
Ruth, one of the loveliest and most beautiful of the Old 
Testament women, was a gleaner in the field of Boaz. 
It was no disparagement to her ; it added a new charm 
to her loveliness, and gave new tints to the roses on 
her beautiful face. All honor to the wives and daught- 
ers who are not too dainty to assist their struggling 
husbands and fathers, in whatever work womanly 
hands may do, to lift the mortgage on the farm, to pay 
an honest debt, and to send the younger children to 
school. But while I say this, I do denounce the lazy, 
indolent husband and father, who makes his wife and 
daughters do such hard work as he can perform, or 
such as is fitting for a man alone to do. And especially 
do I denounce, with all the invective I can command, 
the unfeeling wretch, such as the father whom I saw 
sitting on the fence under the shade of the tree that 
day, who drives to the plow-handles his little eleven 
year old girl- child. It was far beyond her years and 
far beyond her strength. By such untimely and 
unnatural labor, many a poor girl has grown up to be 
the sickly mother of a sickly family, an early victim to 


FUTVRE OF THE RACES. 


13 


an incurable malady, and gone down to a premature 
grave. 

Now it happened that just as I saw that lazy father 
sitting on the fence and his wife and daughters at hard 
labor in the field, there came along a number of col- 
ored children, neatly dressed and clean, with bright 
and happy faces, tripping to school with tin buckets 
and books in their hands. The contrast was so strik- 
ing that I called to it the attention of the gentleman, 
a worthy citizen farmer of that neighborhood, who 
was seated by my side. “ What does this mean?” I 
asked. His reply, in substance, was : “It means that 
the negroes, in this section, are living on bread and 
water that they may send their children to school. They 
keep up their schools not only the three months during 
which tuition is paid by the State, but for the entire 
year. That they may do this, many are building 
their houses near together, forming so many little vil- 
lages. There are their school-houses ; hard by are 
their houses of worship ; and there are their school- 
masters and preachers. With the whites it is other- 
wise. In many parts they have no school-houses at 
all, or none within easy reach. If there are, many do 
not send to school any part of the year. Those 
who do send, send only during the three months edu- 
cation is free, and that, too, but for one year. Three 
months’ schooling is considered amply sufficient.” 
“I have known,” said he, “a father, who has three 
children, to divide the* three months between them, 
sending each a single month. And that is all the edu- 
cation many of the white children in this county ever 
receive.” And to this he added: “The time is com- 


14 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


ing, if it has not already come, when the white illit- 
erates of the county will be proportionately in excess 
of the colored . v 

These things amazed me. But I was comforted by 
the thought that they were exceptional As the facts 
were too limited to generalize, that I might know the 
extent of the evil, I began to make diligent inquiry 
in all the eight counties of the District of which I was 
the Presiding Elder. Wherever I went on my itiner- 
ant rounds, the same evil, to a greater or less extent, 
was said to exist. The colored were generally sending 
the children to school ; the whites were culpably neg- 
lecting it. At the District Conference, in Wrightsville, 
Johnson county, July, 1887, the evil received special 
consideration. There were present representative 
men, preachers and laymen, from all parts of the 
District. A free and full discussion confirmed the 
statement that the colored were giving more attention 
to education than the whites. At the Quarterly 
Conferences the subject was thoroughly canvassed; at 
many Quarterly Meetings it was the burden of my dis- 
courses. These were substantially repeated in 1888 at 
my own District Conference and at others, at Camp 
Meetings, and elsewhere within and without the 
District. While the facts were unpalatable— and to no 
one more than to myself— their truth was not denied. 
The evil was wide-spread— far more than had been 
supposed. The colored were awake ; the whites were 
indifferent, or apathetic. 

My inquiries ceased not. I referred to the report of 
the late lamented Dr. Orr, State Commissioner of 
Education, to the United States Commissioner. From 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


15 


it I learned the wonderful increase of the blacks in the 
common schools. When the system began, the attend- 
ance of the colored, compared with that of the whites, 
was very small. But they were not long in embracing 
its privileges ; the attendance yearly increased in a 
greatly accelerated ratio. In 1886, the year of Dr. 
Orr’s report, the attendance of the blacks was pro- 
portionately better than that of the whites. And this 
was certainly true ; for the whites of school age are 
much in excess of the blacks, and the latter belong 
almost exclusively to the poor and laboring class. 
This cause alone, if the whites were not shamefully 
negligent, would keep their children in attendance on 
the schools proportionately far above the black. 

The next inquiry was, what is being done for the 
education of the poor white children, and what for the 
colored? I was rejoiced to know that in the cities 
excellent elementary, grammar and high schools for 
both are kept up, by municipal taxation, the entire 
year. In the country, with exceptional instances, the 
common school, and that for only three months, is the 
only provision. There, and in the cities, the whites 
have no educational facilities provided by the State, 
county, or city not equally shared by the blacks ; and 
these were granted to the latter, though the former were 
almost impoverished by the late war, and almost all 
the revenues of the State were derived from them. 
We may challenge the world to show equal or like 
liberality. Already several millions have been 
expended by the State for the education of the colored 
children within her borders. Georgia has made no 
provision in her public schools for the whites, which 


16 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


she has not made for the blacks. But what, outside of 
city, county or State aid, has been done to give free 
education to the whites? Here and there is a school, 
as the Alexander in Macon, and the Houghton in 
Augusta, founded by the liberality of some benefactor. 
But such schools are few and far between. Few, if 
any free schools for the whites, founded by private liber- 
ality, exist outside of a city. The whites, in the 
country, at least, are dependent for free education 
mainly, if not solely, upon the pittance granted by the 
State. 

When we come to the provision for the colored 
beyond what is received from the city, the county, and 
the State, we wonder at its largeness. Hor do we 
simply wonder ; we rejoice that they have been the 
recipients of such munificence. For they were poor 
and without education. They had a thirst for knowl- 
edge, but their condition had closed against them all 
its springs. It was well that the philanthropic and 
liberal came to their aid, and unsealed its waters. 
Though much more has been done for them than for 
the poor of my race, I will neither sneer at the liber- 
ality which placed education within their reach, nor 
envy the munificent gifts bestowed upon them. For 
I am not one who would keep them in ignorance ; I 
believe that education is best for them and the State. 
I give all honor to the beneficent who have contributed 
to their education. They have done a work for them 
which we were too poor to do ; a work which we were 
too poor to do, with equal munificence, for our own 
flesh and blood ; a work which will make them better 
citizens, and prepare them the better to exercise the 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


17 


ballot. To the illiterate the ballot is a dangerous 
gift, a most hazardous experiment. In the questions 
which divide the races, in the conflicts now going on 
and may yet arise, it will be far better for my race to 
treat with intelligence than with ignorance. All 
honor, I repeat, to the philanthropic who so generously 
aided in the education of the blacks. But while I 
thus ascribe praise to the truly benevolent, let me not 
be understood as giving any share of it to those whose 
gifts, if there are any such, were prompted by sectional 
or party spirit, or by hatred to the whites of the South. 
If the gifts were bestowed to raise the blacks above 
the whites, to perpetuate the domination of party, to 
foster the sectional antipathies of the late civil war, 
may a gracious God rebuke the malignant spirit which 
prompted them, and overrule them for the good of 
white and colored. 

But what has been done for the colored by private 
liberality? By liberality, I should say, outside of 
Georgia. It is not possible to tell all that has been 
done, for the statistics are not before me. I have but 
to mention the Universities in Atlanta, and the High 
Schools in almost every prominent city and town. 
How much has been given to the former for sites, 
for buildings, for equipments and endowments, I 
cannot say. Clark University is liberally endowed ; 
of late, we are informed, $1SO,000.00— the gift of one 
man — have been added to its funds. The withdrawal 
by the State of the $8,000.00 given to the Atlanta Uni- 
versity, it is said, was a gain and not a loss. It drew 
to it, by appeals which fired the Northern mind and 
heart, very liberal sums. Into the expediency of 


18 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


that withdrawal I shall not inquire ; but I desire to say 
something in extenuation, which I believe to be due to 
the Legislature of Georgia. The money was given to 
the University for the education of the colored. The 
State held it as a trust, no part of which could be 
appropriated by the whites. For the benefit of the 
latter the State had given a like sum to the Uni- 
versity at Athens. How, then, could the State be 
faithful to its trust and allow any part of that trust 
to be devoted to the whites ? In the Atlanta Univer- 
sity there were white students, as well as black stu- 
dents. The former, the State held, had no right to any 
part of what was appropriated exclusively to the latter. 
And the Legislature offered to continue the appropria- 
tion, if the whites were dismissed from the University ; 
but this the authorities of the University refused to 
do, preferring to lose the annual appropriation rather 
than dismiss the whites. And so, for the sake of the 
five or six white students in the University, the appro- 
priation was lost to the blacks. The Legislature 
adhered to what it believed to be a sacred trust ; the 
University, it is claimed, rather than surrender a prin- 
ciple, preferred to lose the appropriation. To keep a 
very few whites in the University, the colored were 
deprived of $8,000.00 per annum. 

In enumerating what has been done for the colored, 
the Slater fund must not be forgotten. In that fund the 
blacks of Georgia have largely shared. What has 
been done by it, may be seen in the annual reports of 
its eminent and gifted Secretary. Many are the 
schools aided by that fund. One of these is the Lewis 
High School in Macon a school which has won very 


FUTURE OF TIIE RACES. 


19 


high praise. To the gift of Mr. Slater, must now be 
added the splendid gift of Mr. Hand. Besides these 
gifts, much has been given by others, and the various 
Churches of the North. The Congregationalists of New 
England, the Presbyterians of the Middle States, and 
the Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and 
the Methodists of the wider North, have vied with one 
another in educational work among the negroes of the 
South. The amount of these contributions is counted 
by millions ; by them the blacks of Georgia have largely 
profited. In comparison with these to the colored, 
insignificant, if any, have been the gifts to the poor 
whites of Georgia. Nor do we know of any large ben- 
efactions, by any outside of Georgia, to the white col- 
leges of the State, except the princely gifts of the 
noble Seney to the Lucy Cobb, at Athens, the Wes- 
leyan, at Macon, and Emory, at Oxford. What part, 
if any, the poor whites of the country have in the Pea- 
body Fund, we cannot tell. 

It may be asked, what benefit has this liberality 
been to the colored people? Have they availed them- 
selves of their educational facilities? have they been 
profited by them? Can they take an education? We 
answer, they have been incalculably benefited. They 
have showed, not only that they can receive education, 
but education of a high order. Their improvement 
has been so astonishing as to silence the doubting and 
caviling. Our Southern eyes have been opened to see 
it; Southern candor is free to admit it. There are 
none who cannot see it, but the wilfully blind ; none 
who do not admit it, but the hopelessly prejudiced. 
Jvet me state what came under my own observation- 


20 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


While a x>rofessor in Emory College, I was at 
Atlanta, in attendance on the State Teachers’ Associ- 
ation. Several were detailed to attend the examina- 
tions of a colored school in that city. Besides myself, 
if I remember rightly, among them were the late Dr. 
Orr, Prof. Sanford, the venerable and able Professor 
of Mathematics, in Mercer University, Dr. Davis of the 
High School at Hephzibah, and others, whose names 
I do not recall. It was a graded school, with a coarse 
of six years. Young negro girls, not more than four- 
teen years of age, demonstrated, with surprising facil- 
ity, difficult propositions in geometry and trigonom- 
etry. Original corollaries, propounded by some of 
the committee, were readily and satisfactorily eluci- 
dated. And such was the proficiency of the school 
in all its departments, it was conceded that we had 
never witnessed a better average examination. Nor 
do I believe that this examination was exceptional. I 
am persuaded that the average examinations in the col- 
ored, are better than the average in the white schools. 
And, in my judgment, this is easily explained. In 
my lectures at Oxford, I was wont to say, If I were 
asked, “What is the first requisite for success in 
scholarship’” I would answer, Teachableness. If 
asked, “What is the second?” I would answer, 
Teachableness. And if asked, “What is the third?” 
I would still answer, Teachableness. Nor would I 
make any other reply, were the question put to me a 
thousand times — for teachableness is the basis of all 
education. Now this is something in which the 
average white boy is wanting; it almost universally 
distinguishes the negro. Take a class of one hundred 


future op the races. 


21 


white boys in college. By the time they are sopho- 
mores, it is a question with not a few, whether, at 
least in all matters touching what is best for them- 
selves, they do not know more than their parents, and 
even more than their professors. It is soon known 
who are the honor-men of the class. It is left to the 
latter to pay equal attention to all the curriculum. 
The honor-men are likely to be regarded as mere plod- 
ders, with but little talehts, and certainly without 
genius. Many a sophomore has chosen his profession, 
or calling in life. This one says, “I will be a law- 
yer;” that one, “I will be a physician;” another, “I 
will be a politician and go to Congress ;” and another, 
“I will be a gentleman of elegant leisure.” Hence 
they give attention to those studies which they deem 
most helpful to the end they have in view ; others 
they neglect, giving only so much time to them as will 
enable them to pass in the examinations. And hence, 
while one may have a high grade in the classics, he 
may have a low grade in mathematics, or vice versa ; 
while one may be pre-eminent in belles-lettres , he may 
be poor in the sciences. And so the average of the 
class is much lower than if all had given equal atten- 
tion to the whole curriculum. And thus the individ- 
uality of the white boy, or his unteachableness, brings 
down the average of the class. 

It is not so with the colored. They have but little 
individuality, and are the most teachable of scholars. 
In the recitation room they are all eyes, and all ears. 
Not a word of the instructor is lost ; and equal attention 
is paid to every part of the curriculum. Hence, if 
they have any minds at all, any aptness to acquire 




FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


knowledge, they are sure to make a good average. And 
for the same reason, black soldiers, in drill, may excel 
the white. Let the same drill-master, who is an expert, 
drill two companies, one white and the other colored, 
and the latter will be the better drilled. And this is 
so, because they can be moved with almost the precis- 
ion of machines. It is very difficult to make machines 
out of a hundred white men.; it is comparatively easy 
to make machines out of a hundred black men. The 
white preserves his individuality, and cannot be made 
to step at another’s will; the black tries to do just as 
he is commanded. 

Here I must pause to say a word to the boys of my 
race. But before I say what I wish, suffer the remark, 
that your sweethearts and future wives in the Female 
Colleges stand better average examinations than boys. 
Whether this is because the girls are more teachable, 
or have better minds, I will not decide. 

The curriculum of the College, young gentlemen, is 
the result of the experience and wisdom of years. Its 
studies are intended to broaden the mind, to develop 
all its powers in symmetrical proportion. The 
knowledge and discipline which they give are the 
foundation on which scholarship ^s to be builded. 
And though you become a specialist, you will find in 
after life a need for the very studies which you neg- 
lected, and the discipline which they impart. When 
I was in College it was my purpose to be a lawyer, and 
to enter into political life. To such studies as I 
thought most conducive to that end, I gave special 
attention, to the comparative neglect of others. But 
what has been my experience ! What do I say of the 


future of the races. 


23 


wisdom of this course ? I will answer by saying, I 
have found, to my regret, that often in conversation, 
in the study, in the pulpit and on the platform, I have 
felt the sore need of the knowledge and discipline 
which the neglected studies alone could have supplied. 
Many a significant fact, or important principle, or 
apt illustration was wanting, because I knew so little 
of the studies which furnished them. And yet my 
neglect was only comparative, for I managed to stand 
well, if not pre-eminent, in all the studies. But for 
my folly I might have stood equally high in all, and 
hence have had a broader and surer foundation on 
which to build the subsequent superstructure. 

But while I say these things, it must not be under- 
stood that I commend the curricula of all the Colleges. 
Many are overloaded and crammed with too many and 
too varied studies. Knowledge thus imparted is ex- 
ceedingly superficial ; the discipline is more hurtful 
than salutary. Let the College be the foundation for 
a broad and liberal culture. Let the student seek to 
excel in all its studies, and to strengthen himself 
where he is weakest. If he cannot pass through the 
College, let him in special schools pursue special 
studies ; if he can, let him, after graduation at the 
College, follow up his specialties in the University. 

Asking pardon for this digression, what, it may be 
inquired, will be the result, if the facts stated in this 
discourse are substantially true ? What the issue, if 
the negroes, outside of the cities, have better educa- 
tional advantages than the whites? What, if they 
make use of them ? And what if the latter neglect 
even such as they have, and suffer their children to 
grow up in ignorance ? 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


24 


Before we answer let me remark, once for all, what 
we say has reference solely to those communities where 
the facts as stated exist. For we have no fear for the 
future of the white race in the South as a race. We 
believe that the supremacy of the whites will -surely 
be maintained. We are persuaded — and we mean no 
disparagement to the race of Ham — we speak only 
facts — the sure facts of history — the Caucasian is the 
superior race. The ethnological distinctions are too 
marked to question this ; the facts of history have thus 
far demonstrated it. And yet w-e are candid to admit 
that the wonderful development of the negro in this 
country warrants the conclusion that there is more in 
the race than their most credulous admirers had sup- 
posed. The difference between the slave brought to 
this country from Guiana or Congo and his lowest 
descendant on our rice plantations, shows a marvelous 
improvement. And how very wide the difference 
between the lowest rice plantation negro and Bishop 
Campbell of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
or President Price of the Zion Methodist Episcopal 
Church ! The eloquence of the one has often delighted 
the whites of his audience ; the eloquence of the other 
thrilled the Methodist Ecumenical Conference in Lon- 
don. If individuals of the race, under conditions the 
most unfavorable and adverse, have made such pro- 
gress, what may we not expect now that they have such 
increased educational facilities'? The colored race 
forsooth, cannot receive an education ! What, then’ 
shall we say to the fact, as stated by certain of our 
white Commissioners of Education, that graduates of 
the Atlanta University have stood better examinations 


putorp of tup racPs. 


25 


than graduates of the State University at Athens, 
Emory at Oxford, or Mercer at Macon ? By no means 
do I generalize from this, and say that the colored col- 
lege gives a better education than the white colleges 
of Georgia. The Commissioners to whom I allude 
mean no such thing; nor do I. What they intended 
was this, the colored applicants, in the instances be- 
fore them, stood the best. It may have been that the 
best of the negro college and the poorest of the white 
were before them. They only gave the fact as it was ; 
and I stated what they said only to show that the 
negro can receive an education, and to answer such as 
may deny it. 

We are now prepared to answer the questions defer- 
red, and we trust that you are prepared to receive the 
answers. What will be the result where the blacks 
have the best educational advantages, and make the 
best use of them? And what if the whites neglect even 
such as they have, and allow their offspring to grow up 
without letters and in ignorance? When this is the 
case we must expect the negroes to have the suprem- 
acy. They will force out the better and more cultiva- 
ted whites, and have the supremacy over the illiterate 
and ignorant who remain. And this result is a mere 
question of time ; the problem may be solved as a sum 
in arithmetic. How long will it take the blacks to be 
the better educated class, and to have the supremacy, 
if they educate their children, while the whites are 
either not sending to school at all, or for a very little 
time ? What the result, if the fathers and mothers of 
the colored children are hard at work in the field, and 
living on bread and water, while the children are all 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


26 


in the school ? What, if the whites regard their chil- 
dren, who are bone of their bone, and flesh of their 
flesh, only as so much chattels— so much property — so 
many slaves, whose labor is necessary to support the 
family? What, if unwilling to deny themselves they 
live in comparative extravagance? What, if they are 
unwilling to practice the necessary economy ? What, 
if the fathers and grown up sons are hunting, fishing, 
drinking, loitering about the stores, and hanging 
around the bar-rooms, while the elder girls and the 
smaller children are hoeing, ploughing, and delving 
in the fields, the only hope of a crop ? This is no 
fancy picture. It is true to the life. It may often be 
seen. Hor is the evil confined to the country ; it 
exists in the cities. Many of the country people are 
flocking to the cities — some because they are hopeless 
of moving their neighbors to join them in keeping up 
the school; others, that they may put their children 
in the factories. Thus the country is being drained 
of whites and left to the negroes. Thus the cities are 
being crowded with the worthless, the thriftless, and 
the ignorant. And of all the poor little white slaves 
in the land, the most pitiable, and the most to be 
pitied, are many of the children in the factories of the 
city. From daylight till in the night they toil, pale, 
wan, ill-clad and ill-fed, and never see the inside of a 
school house. When I asked the Superintendent of 
Education of one of our large cities, how many of the 
Factory children attend the public schools? men- 
tioning a certain school house near the Factory, he 
answered : “ One would suppose that the Factory 

children attend it. But they do not j scarcely is one 


PVTVRE OF THE RACES. 


27 


ever found in our Public Schools.” Many of these 
poor children never see the inside of a book, much less 
the inside of a school house. For there are no night 
schools ; if there were the over- worked children are 
too tired to do anything but to sleep, if indeed they 
are not too tired for that. And where are the fathers ! 
In the factory, working by the side of the little ones 1 
Not all; not a few spend the days in idle loafing, and 
the evenings in the lowest bar-rooms, and in drunken 
debauch, drinking up the very bones and sinews, the 
very life blood of the little ones. Their wails have 
reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. They cry 
aloud for investigation and correction by the Super- 
intendents, by the stockholders, and by the State. 

If the country is being thus denuded of the whites ; 
if those who remain are illiterate and ignorant, will it 
be any surprise that the blacks, in such places, gain 
the ascendancy? Is it not true, that, in many of the 
counties, if the blacks and whites born before the late 
war be eliminated, the white illiterates are already 
proportionately in excess of the colored ! In such 
counties it is not hard to predict the political future ; 
nor is it difficult to forecast the changes in the mate- 
rial and social status of the races. The better educated 
class must be in the end the more wealthy and influ- 
ential. The negro leaders with commendable foresight 
see this. They tell their people that it is but a ques- 
tion of time. Knowing that the white race has the 
supremacy because it is the more cultured, they urge# 
upon their people the necessity of educating the 
children. The negro preachers tell me that they all 
preach it from their pulpits. They urge their people 


PVTUtifi OP THE PACES. 


28 


to live on bread and water sooner than neglect the 
education of the young. They inculcate a community 
of thought and feeling and sentiment. They appeal 
to all the instincts and pride of race. Nor do we 
blame them. We commend their zeal. They mark 
every father who does not send his child to school. 
They ostracise him ; they put him under social bans ; 
they look upon him as an enemy to the progress of his 
race, or as stupidly indifferent to it. They are 
aroused ; they are thoroughly in earnest. The Negro 
who votes not with his political party is less under 
social excommunication than the Negro who neglects 
to educate his child. Witness the late pronunciamento 
of Bishop Gaines to the members of his Church. He 
passes the word of command all along the dusky 
line. Educate the children as a thing of chiefest 
importance to the race, is the stirring manifesto of 
this earnest and indefatigable Bishop. Nor is it 
unheeded. The flock has caught the spirit of their 
chief pastor. One soul, one spirit breathes in all ; one 
purpose animates the whole — the elevation of the race. 

Bishop Gaines is right when he thinks that educa- 
tion will give wealth and influence to his people. We 
do not believe that in this country they will as a race 
ever have greater wealth and power ; for they never 
will be cultured above the whites. They may, as we 
have admitted, have the greater in those counties 
where they have the better education. For the Cau- 
casian race owes its great wealth and predominance to 
its pre-eminent culture. Knowledge is wealth ; and it 
is power. So it ever has been ; so it always will be. 
What, if in the past, the Negro race in culture had 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


29 


been pre-eminent? Then it would have been the 
wealthy and the rnling race. What if the great war- 
riors, and statesmen, and orators, and poets, and 
philosophers, and discoverers, and inventors, and 
painters, and sculptors had been black, and not white? 
Then the black race would have figured most in 
history, in literature, and in art. Then all that has 
been said about the kinky hair, and the facial angle, 
and the flat nose, and the thick lips would have been 
reversed. That it has not been, is because the black 
is the inferior race. The white race is such as it was 
in the past, it is such as it now is, and it will be such 
forever, because it was, is now, and always will be 
the superior. 

Mere brute force may have its victories. But these 
are in domains peculiarly its own. The prize-fighter 
Sullivan, in the pugilistic combat, will triumph over 
every competitor who has less skill, less strength and 
less endurance But the prize-ring is not the sole arena 
in which wealth and power may be won. Mere brute 
force enters but little into many great battle fields of life. 
In them knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, experience, 
judgment, and foresight prevail above breadth of chest, 
toughness of muscle, the brawniest arm, or the longest 
wind. Scarcely a country on earth is a greater 
moral and intellectual force than Scotland. 7 Tis a 
bleak climate, a poor and rugged soil ; and yet her 
barns are filled with plenty ; her looms yield the finest 
fabrics ; her ship yards turn out the staunchest bot- 
toms and the swiftest keels. She began to “ cultivate 
literature on a little oatmeal,” and it has brought 
>vealth find fame find power. And all this, because 


30 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


she laid the foundations of her greatness in the school 
house, in the University, and in the kirk. 

Edu< atel labor is skilled labor. Its advantage over 
uneducated labor is unquestioned. Educated soldiers 
are the best soldiers ; other things being anything like 
equal, they are invincible. In the Franco-Prussian 
war educated German soldiers won an easy victory 
over uneducated French soldiers. If the contest had 
been more one of brute force, courage and dash, the 
result might have been as it often had been in the past. 
The French tri-color might have waved over the dis- 
mantled fortresses of Berlin instead of trailing in the 
dust at Sedan, at Metz, and at Paris. It is not enough 
to say that the genius of the First Napoleon triumphed 
over all the Generals of Prussia. For as soon as Stein 
and Hardenberg began to reform the State, Scharn- 
horst and Gneisenau the army, and William von Hum- 
boldt the school system of Prussia, the disgraces of 
Jena and Auerst'adt were wiped out by the victories 
of Grossbeeren and Katzbach. And yet the Prussian 
soldiers of Biilow and Blucher were not such as Prus- 
sian soldiers became under the Crown Prince Frederick 
and the Baron von Moltke. In the armies of William I., 
every soldier had been taught in the kindergarten, in 
the gymnasium, and not a few in the University; in 
the armies of the Third Napoleon, out of about three 
hundred non-commissioned officers in the prison at 
Konigsberg, nearly, if not quite, one half could not 
sign the monthly pay-roll. 

And at the first great Paris Exposition, those who 
employed educated labor carried off the prizes over 
all who did not England, even in domains where shg 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


SI 


had been supreme, was beaten by several competitors. 
And she was beaten because her workmen were com- 
paratively unlettered and ignorant, while those of her 
successful rivals were taught the elementary branches 
of the schools. The cause of her defeat was early the 
subject of earnest inquiry in the House of Commons, 
and in the House of Lords. The defeat was ascribed 
to its true cause ; the remedy was at once applied ; 
English workmen were taught in the schools, and 
England regained her lost prestige. 

Among the questions touching the races in the South 
and their future there is one of supreme moment. It 
is a delicate matter ; but it must not be passed over 
because it is delicate. I shall mention it ; I shall seek 
to discuss it dispassionately, with perfect candor, and 
with deepest interest in the issue. And while all my 
instincts, predilections, and sympathies undeniably 
are on the side of my own race — for “ blood is thicker 
than water” — I shall approach the subject with the 
very best wishes for the colored people, and with the 
earnest prayer that the providences of Almighty God 
may work for both races present and lasting good. I 
would not utter a word to alienate the races. Palsied 
be my tongue if knowingly and purposely I utter a 
word that may directly or indirectly tend to bring on 
a racial war. If I foresee dangers, and speak of them, 
it will be to give the note of warning, and to show how 
to avoid them. I shall speak of a conflict between the 
races, but I shall try so to treat it that I may contri- 
bute to its peaceable and bloodless issue. He is not 
a wise man who blindly shuts his eyes to this conflict 5 
nor is he a good man, who, while he sees it, seeks to 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


32 


provoke it. He will be deterred neither by the 
charge of pessimism, nor of optimism. Foreseeing the 
evils, he will seek their remedies. He is not such a 
pessimist as to despair of deliverance from the former ; 
he is not such an optimist as to see no need of the 
latter. He is neither skeptical nor credulous. He is 
not blind to coming evils ; with faith in God and man, 
he is hopeful of a happy issue out of them all. If he 
is impelled to foretell them, it is to provide against 
them ; if unreal, he w ill rejoice to find out that he was 
mistaken j if real, he is willing to be called a false 
prophet, and will even do all in his power to make 
himself such, if so be he has helped by his warnings to 
avert or counteract them. 

One of the greatest of Northern statesmen never 
uttered a truer political axiom than when, before the 
late war, he said, there is an irrepressible conflict 
betw een slave labor and free labor. The conflict was 
irrepressible. It was precipitated, and brought to a 
final issue, sooner than anyone had dreamed. It 
ended in the freedom of the slave ; slave labor became 
a thing of the past, and the country w as all free. In 
this result we of the South heartily acquiesce. Few, 
if any, would have the blacks returned to slavery. 
By their emancipation we ourselves have been eman- 
cipated. We are freer men than we w^ere when we 
were the masters. And our children are freed from a 
slavery that would have been worse than ours. We 
w r ere bound with chains wdiich w ere the more strongly 
riveted by every blow' with which misguided fanat- 
icism smote the institution of slavery. And had it 
not been for those blow^s, the blacks would have been 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


33 


freed without the shedding of a single drop of blood in 
fratricidal war. The slave would have been gradually 
but surely emancipated, and by the Southron’s own 
act. Many of the horrors of slavery, intensified by the 
interferences of misguided men, would have been 
avoided ; the slaves would have been taught letters by 
their humane masters ; the evils of slavery would have 
been greatly mitigated ; and when emancipation came 
the emancipator and the emancipated would have 
been the better prepared for it. Nor are we of the 
South alone in this view. Many true men of the 
North have been candid enough, and fearless enough 
— notably the late Dr. Whedon in the Methodist 
Quarterly Eeview — to confess and acknowledge it. 
And such, after the issues of the late war are finally 
buried, and the union of the States becomes a union 
of hearts, we confidently expect will be the judgment 
of impartial history. 

No sooner was the slave made a freeman than a new 
problem was sprung upon the country. It is a prob- 
lem which we have been solving, which we are now 
solving, and which must be solved. That problem is 
this : How can two races, as distinct and separate as 
the white and colored races of the South, but both 
equal before the law, live side by side in the same coun- 
try, and under the same government, without an irre- 
pressible conflict between them? We may shut our 
eyes to this conflict, but it is upon us ; it is now going 
on ; and it is a conflict as irrepressible as was the con- 
flict between slave and free labor. How will it end % 
What are its issues ! I can only suggestively consider 
it, and to it must confine myself, though it has a corol- 


34 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


lary with only less significance than its own. That 
corollary is this : How can the South be open to the 
free labor of the North now that the blacks are surely 
and rapidly driving the whites out of the mechanic 
arts? Is not the South more hermetically sealed against 
Northern labor than in the days of slavery? Then the 
blacks were in the fields, or the more menial employ- 
ments. Slavery had but few colored mechanics. Now 
and then a slave was trained to do the ordinary work 
of the plantation in wood, in brick, or in iron. If the 
master was a contractor he might train one to such 
labor as an apprentice hand could perform. Nearly 
all skilled labor was supplied by the North. The 
Northern mechanic was sure of such remunerative 
prices for his work as enabled him to support and edu- 
cate his family, and give them as good a social posi- 
tion as, or even better, than they held at home. All 
this has changed. Many a negro has laid down the 
hoe, the plow, and all the implements of the farm, for 
the carpenter’s plane, the brick-mason’s trowel, or the 
blacksmith’s hammer. Thousands are in the mechanic 
arts ; thousands are journeymen workmen ; and not a 
few are mechanics of technical skill. Nor have they 
failed to enter into other departments of labor. Many 
handle the shoemaker’s last, and the tailor’s goose ; 
and not a few are the engineers who open and shut the 
valves to our steam engines. And as their wants are 
few, and their tastes simple, they work for much less 
wages than will meet the wants and tastes of Northern 
mechanics. The white man cannot, or will not, live 
on wages that satisfies the black man. And besides 
the Northern mechanic, in the days of slavery, not 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


35 


only received a higher price for his labor, but found a 
very large class in social position and political standing 
far beneath him. Hence the abolition of slavery has 
not thrown the South wide open to the Northern me- 
chanic, but more effectively closed it against him. 
And yet the slogan of the Douglass, “This is the white 
man’s country,” did more to unite the North against 
the South than all the sentiment against slavery. 

When, then, we consider the marvelous growth of the 
blacks, and their increased and increasing skill in all 
departments of labor, how long will it be before the 
colored laborer will be a formidable competitor of the 
Northern, even in the latter’s own home? Will not 
Northern manufacturers and contractors employ negro 
labor because it is the cheaper ? and will they not do this 
as soon as negro labor becomes educated and skilled? in 
certain Northern factories, are not negro laborers alrea- 
dy supplying the place of white laborers? Wherefore, 
is there no danger that the strikers, the communists, 
and the anarchists of the North, seeing all this, may 
raise the cry, “ This is a white man’s country ! down 
with the negro ! as slavery was a disturbing element 
in the government, so is the negro ! as slavery was 
eliminated, so must the negro be eliminated ?” Is there 
no danger that the cry raised against the Chinese on 
our Pacific Coast will be raised against the African in 
the South ? It will be unless capital so act toward 
labor that no such dissatisfaction arise as shall extort 
the cry. God save the South from such communism! 
If it come, as come it may, the real protectors of the 
freedmen will be their late masters. 

But the problem, to which the above is a corollary, 


36 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


is upon us ! how will it he solved ? does history throw 
any light upon it? how have like problems been 
solved in the past? We appeal to history, and are 
appalled. Appealing to the past, we find that con- 
flicts between races under the same government have 
been decided by reducing the conquered or weaker to 
slavery, by its expulsion, by its extermination, or by the 
amalgamation of races. The first is out of the ques- 
tion. Slavery is dead, never, God be praised, to have 
a resurrection. Equally repugnant is expulsion, or 
extermination. It will be neither the one nor the 
other. The negroes are here, and they are here to 
stay. God has thrown us together, together we must 
live, and together we must die. Neither will it be 
amalgamation. It is not to be mentioned — no, not for 
a single moment. It is abhorrent to both races. For 
years the blacks and whites have been living together 
in the Northern States, and been equally free before 
the law, and yet they are to-day as distinct and sep- 
arate as when the blacks were first emancipated. The 
experiments in Jamaica and San Domingo have satis- 
fied both races in this country that separation is infi- 
nitely better for both. And so strongly is this senti- 
ment fixed in both races that children of mixed blood 
are fast disappearing in the South. One of the most 
observing of the Superintendents of Education informs 
me that year by year the number of lialf-breeds is 
growing less and less in the public schools. In all the 
conflicts of the past where amalgamation was the 
result, and it ended in benefit to both races, the inter- 
marriage was between the ethnologically and specifi- 
cally homogeneous. The blood which flowed from great 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


37 


Caesar’s wounds was the commingled blood of the Iapy- 
gian and the Hellenan, the Pelasgian and the Samnite, 
the Latin 'and the Sabine, the Oscanand the Etruscan, 
the Apulian and the Umbrian. And what is the blood 
which flows in the veins of the present Englishman but 
the blood of the confluent streams that once flowed 
respectively in the veins of the Piet and the Scott ; the 
Angle, the Jute and the Saxon ; the Norseman and 
the Dane; the Batavian and the Norman— the Celt 
and the Teuton f 

But will not history repeat itself % Will not the same 
causes always produce the same results f That like 
causes produce like effects is a truism of universal 
application. When effects vary, we know that some- 
thing has come in to modify the causes. Hence we 
answer, if the causes are precisely the same, the effects 
will be precisely the same, and history will repeat 
itself. If the present problem is identically the same 
as problems solved in the past, and the causes, now as 
then, are identically the same, we must expect like 
results. It must be slavery, expulsion, extermination, 
or amalgamation. But the problem is not the same ; 
nor are the causes the same. Ours is a new problem, 
and it is a mighty problem. Millions of both races 
are involved in it. And these millions are almost 
equally divided. The question is not between the 
very few and the very many, the very weak and the 
very strong. It is not a question that can be deter- 
mined by the parties themselves. It is not a great, 
independent and irresponsible power treating with 
those whom it has brought under subjection. In this 


33 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


case belli parties are equally free before the law ; both 
have the ballot ; both are under the same central gov- 
ernment and the same sovereign power. And this 
central, sovereign power will be a very important fac- 
tor in the problem. And if we draw a lesson from 
history the present is not a question between heathen 
and heathen. We live under a better civilization. The 
Bible and the Christian religion will be potential agents 
in the solution. Many of the leaders of both races 
are God-fearing and God-honoring men. Many of the 
rank and file love God, and love man for God’s sake. 
Though divided by racial distinctions, they are one in 
Christ Jesus, striving together for the faith once deliv- 
ered unto the saints, and endeavoring to keep the unity 
of the spirit in the bond of peace. They have one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of 
all. They are bound together by common interests. 
They must rejoice and weep together. What affects 
one, affects both. If one suffer, both suffer ; if one is 
prosperous, both are. In mutual interests, mutual 
rights, mutual hopes, and mutual destinies, they are 
strongly bound together. Common sense, common 
interests, a common country, and common ties of 
religion unite to reverse the history of the past, and 
make the solution of the great problem a peaceable 
and bloodless one. The two races shall live together 
distinct and separate, both equal before the law, with 
mutual rights respected, confirmed and strengthened. 
That this be the result should be the prayer of every 
Christian, and the wish of every patriot. And that it 
will be the result is most likely if the children of both 
races are properly educated. Upon the education of 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


39 


the young, more than on any other non-supernatural 
cause, the issue depends. If ignorance and vice are to 
decide it, history will repeat itself. The only pros- 
pect of a peaceable and bloodless result is in intelligence 
and virtue. The only sure hope that it will be so is 
in the Christian and sanctified education of both races. 
Secular education alone, however complete, will not 
satisfactorily do it. In this conflict the gospel of the 
grace of God is the efficient and almighty agent. If it 
end peaceably and bloodlessly it will be the triumph of 
the Christian religion — the grandest since Pentecost. 

Wherefore, if these things be so, it is the duty of the 
State to provide the best education in her power for all 
the children. We are not here to discuss the wisdom 
or unwisdom of the common school system. It is 
enough for us to know that it has been adopted by the 
State, and that upon it the young mainly depend for 
elementary education. As long as it is the State’s 
policy it is the duty of every good citizen to try to 
make it effective, and the State is under every obliga- 
tion to perfect it. The very first duty is to provide 
schools for the entire year, and to make education 
compulsory. That the former can be done no one ques- 
tions who knows the great resources of the Empire 
State of the South. Let the State see to it that 
property is returned at is true valuation. Then let 
such a percentage be put upon this valuation that 
every child, the entire scholastic year, be educated in 
the common school. It is the falsest economy to deny 
this ; it is the truest, to grant it. It is an investment, 
and it is an investment the safest that can be made. 
Its annual returns in educated brains will be worth far 


40 


FUTURE OF THE RACES . 


more than the annual interest, or the annual invest- 
ment, in dollars. It will be seen in the stimulus given 
to every industry, in the opening of hidden mines, in 
the clatter of multiplied spindles, in the hum of im- 
proved machinery, in the increased fertility of the soil, 
in better filled barns, in the enlargement of all the pro- 
ductive power of the State, in added resources, in aug- 
mented revenues, and, above all, in the lessening of 
ignorance and crime, and in the growth of knowledge 
and virtue. 

And education ought to be compulsory, that it may 
be the more effective. If the State puts free educa- 
tion within the reach of the child, the parent ought to 
be compelled to educate him. It should be the child’s 
inalienable right, which no parent may vitiate. Talk 
about personal rights, personal liberties, and the 
like, when such tremendous issues are at stake ! Talk 
about personal liberties ! Whose liberties are at 
stake ? Whose liberties are endangered ? What is the 
restraint put upon the father’s liberties compared with 
the danger to your liberties and my liberties from the 
ignorance and vice of his illiterate sons ? I would as 
soon hesitate to restrain the liberties of a mad bull, or 
a mad dog. For a mad bull, or a mad dog, is not so 
dangerous to the State as the unnatural, selfish, penu- 
rious father, who, treating his child as a mere chattel, 
and dooming him to dig and delve, brings him up 
without letters, and in absolute ignorance. Prate about 
the restraint of personal liberties while the lazy and 
unfeeling father sits under the shade of a tree whit- 
tling a stick, and his little half-clad, sickly eleven 
year old girl child, with toddling steps and blistered 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


41 


feet, follows the unsteady plow beneath a Summer’s 
blazing noonday sun ! and prate about personal rights ! 
what about the rights of that little girl ! has she no 
rights? If that child has property in her own right, 
does not the State protect it ? Can the father alienate 
it? Can he consume it upon his own lusts ? If the 
natural, testamentary, or legal guardian misuses or 
squanders her property, does not the State interfere? 
If by will, or otherwise, property is left to her specific- 
ally for her education, and is not so applied, may not 
the State take it from the guardian, even though he be 
her father, and give its management to another ? If 
the State does this when another is the giver, why may 
she not defend the child’s right to what she herself has 
bestowed, and see to it that the child is not defrauded 
of it by the act of the father, or of any other ? If the 
State gives free education to the child, is it not the 
child’s sacred and vested right? If the State inter- 
pose the broad aegis of her sovereignty and power to 
protect the property of that little one from even the 
father’s thievish clutch, ought. she not to interpose the 
same aegis to defend her right to the education which 
she has provided ? Will the State protect the right to 
property, and not the right to that which, to the little 
one, is worth infinitely more? It may be possible 
when of age to recover the estate of which she has been 
robbed by the unnatural father. But it will be impos- 
sible to recover the lost education. Lost in youth, it is 
lost forever. Wherefore, the parent, by direct or indirect 
compulsion, ought to be made to educate the child. If 
the State has the right to take the ballot from him who 
fails to pay his taxes, with much greater reason has 


42 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


she the right to take it from him who defrauds his 
child of letters. 

Whatever may be said about the duty of the State to 
educate, there is no question about the duty of parents. 
There is no excuse for failure but the truthful plea of 
absolute inability. The duty is imperative ; the obli- 
gation is inalienable. If the State provide the school, 
the parent, unless providentialy hindered, must send. 
If the State does not, the parent, to the extent of his 
ability, must educate the child, even if he has to live 
on bread and water. No plea in excuse is admissible 
but such as will be accepted at the bar of God. No 
parent has right views of this obligation unless he 
regards the education of the child above houses and 
lands, above silver and gold — above all that is called 
property — above his own convenience or comfort. 
Wherefore, ye fathers and mothers, give a good educa- 
tion to the children, even if you leave them neither 
houses nor lands, neither silver nor gold. Educated 
poverty is better than illiterate wealth. 

Here I pause to give advice that may prove helpful 
to parents, and of benefit to boys. There is nothing 
more common than for a father, in whatsoever he may 
be engaged, to desire that the son succeed him. And 
this is done without duly considering the inclinations, 
and tastes, and aptitudes of the boy. The able advo- 
cate wishes to associate with him his Son in the practice 
of law, and to leave him his clients, his books, and 
his briefs. The eminent healer of diseases is ambi- 
tious to commit to his boy his patients, his theses, 
and his prescriptions. The learned professor longs to 
give to his son his chair ? his lectures, and his annota- 


FUTURE OF TIIE RACES. 


43 


tions. To his the merchant prince would hand over 
his customers, his ledgers, and his stock in trade. And 
to his the successful farmer would surrender his acres, 
his barns, and his implements of husbandry. This 
desire is natural, and even commendable ; and yet it 
may result in saddest mistakes. For the son, pushed 
into positions for which he is unfitted, and without 
the special talents which distinguished the father, 
may never rise above mediocrity, or turn out to be an 
utter failure. In some other calling, if he had been 
educated for it and continued in it, he might have 
been eminently successful. Wherefore, let every 
father carefully study the bent of his boy’s mind, 
ascertain, if possible, that for which talents and incli- 
nations best fit him, and determine accordingly. And 
as nearly all who hear me are farmers, and as you, 
above all others, fall into the mistake we are consider- 
ing, let me entreat you to guard against it. It is not 
the poet alone who is born, not made. Hot every son 
of a farmer is fitted to be a farmer. There are, per- 
haps, proportionately more failures in your pursuit 
than in any other. Leave the farm to the son who is 
successor to your inclinations, but to him who loves 
books, and has no taste for the plow and the harrow, 
give, if you can, a liberal education. If you can give 
no more, give him that as his part of the inheritance. 
It will be to him far more than all your lands and live 
stock, were the whole his own, and were that whole to 
increase in value one hundred fold. 

In this discourse we have been confined within very 
narrow limits. We have considered the insufficiency 
pf the provision by the State for elementary education. 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


44 


and the neglect of even the little she offers to her 
children. Bat this is a very small part of education 
as defined in the beginning of this address. The edu- 
cation of children is a subject, which, taken as a 
whole, is exceedingly comprehensive and broad. It 
embraces immeasurably more than is taught in the 
schools. It includes all that fits the child for duty to 
God and the State, to society, to his fellow men, and 
for a life of employment, activity, and usefulness. 
The education of which we have been speaking, though 
a factor, is but a factor. It is not to be lightly 
regarded 5 but it must not be considered the whole of 
education, or even its most important part. Parental 
training, or home discipline, is the most important of 
all. Subordination to authority should be its earliest 
lesson. The formation of character, the necessity for 
right principles and right motives, the distinctions 
between right and wrong, the cultivation of good 
habits and good manners, the purpose and end of life, 
and the relations to society, to government, to man- 
kind, and to God, are themes which should be begun 
in the home and continued in the school. The neces- 
sity and dignity of labor, the importance of industry 
and frugality, the restraint of the appetites and pas- 
sions, obedience to law, self-denial and self-sacrifice, 
respect for age, kindness and gentleness to inferiors, 
liberal giving to the needy, and charity for all, are 
lessons that may be early instilled into the youthful 
mind and heart. How to become good and true, how 
to be usefully employed, how to contribute to the well- 
being of society and add to the resources of the State, 
how to do the greatest good to the souls apd bodies of 


PUTUkiZ OP THE RACES. 


45 


men, how to be faithful in all the relations of life, how 
to have and keep the approval of God and the testi- 
mony of a good conscience, are intrinsically far more 
important than all the elementary branches of knowl- 
edge taught in the schools. One of the first of lessons 
is that we should do unto others as we would have 
them do unto us. That no man liveth to himself, and 
no man dieth to himself ; that whether living or dying 
we are the Lord r s, may be impressed much earlier 
than we suppose on the mind and conscience of youth. 
In a word, that education is most sadly and fatally 
deficient which does not make the Bible the rule of 
all conduct and the shaper of all character. The 
words of God must be laid up in the heart and in the 
soul, and diligently taught to the children. Nothing else 
can be a substitute for them ; and nothing else can be 
a substitute for the duty expressed and implied in the 
command, And ye slicdl teach them your children , speak- 
ing of them when thou sittest in thine house , when thou 
walk'St by the way , when thou liest down , and when thou 
risest up. 

In this discourse we have indeed stressed the import- 
ance of elementary education in the schools. But it 
must not be understood that we rely solely or mainly 
upon a thorough system of public schools to decide the 
questions at issue between the races. We regard the 
schools as only helps to that end. He is very short- 
sighted who supposes that they alone will satisfactorily 
determine the social and other issues of the day. Nor 
do we believe that he has any longer or broader vision 
who ignores the public schools, or minifies their 
importance. Alone, they will fall far short of a favora- 


46 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


ble solution to tlie mighty problems before us ; without 
them, such solution may be greatly endangered. 
While we are free to admit that education without 
character whets the sword of the demagogical and the 
turbulent, and makes him more dangerous to society 
and the State ; we must insist that character without 
education is not thoroughly armed for the great battles 
it must wage. Christian and sanctified education, we 
contend, is the mighty spiritual weapon, which, in 
this conflict, is sharper, and more effectual, than all 
the carnal weapons in all the armories of irreligion and 
unbelief. 

I have spoken of the Common Schools, and the duty 
of the State to extend the school term over the entire 
year. I must return to these schools, and say some- 
thing more before I dismiss them. Here, in this pres- 
ence, before these ministers of Cod and these follow- 
ers of the Lord Jesus, I must raise a note of warning. 
I am a friend to the common school system, and will 
give to it all the help and all the influence I can com- 
mand. But it must be with the distinct understanding 
that the Bible be not eliminated from it. From some 
things that are openly said, and some that are whis- 
pered, I fear there is danger this may be done, and 
that education be entirely secularized. That there is 
such a tendency is suggested by the facts as they exist 
in some other States. The Catholics favor it. At 
least they would banish the Protestant Bible from the 
schools. But the Catholics are not alone in this. 
Others, not Catholics, I am informed, hold that the 
Bible should not be read, and the name of Christ should 
not be heard in the common school ; that nothing 


PtiTVRE OP THE RACES. 


4 ? 


should be read or spoken there to which a Buddhist, 
a Confucianist, a Mohamedan or a Jew could object. 
And we have seen — quite recently — how nearly the 
University of the State was committed to the care of 
irreligion, if not of infidelity. These things demand 
the unceasing vigilance of all who love the Word of 
God, and believe in its promises to them and their 
children. Bather let the State Common School system 
go, than the name of the Blessed Christ be a forbidden 
name in her schools. Let the Jewish Sanhedrim, 
which sent Jesus of Nazareth to Pilate’s judgment 
bar, forbid the speaking of that precious name, and 
threaten death to all who speak it, but let us and oUr 
children be free to speak it when and where we please. 
If it be forbidden to our children in the schools of the 
city and the State, let us have our own denomina- 
tional schools, from the Infant School to the College 
and University. If the Evangelical Churches of Geor- 
gia were as wise and as liberal as the Evangelical 
Churches of Great Britian and the Canadas, they would 
at least insist upon a system which permits them to 
have their own denominational schools, to teach, in 
their own way and without hinderance by the State, 
their youth morals and religion, and at the same time 
receive from the State supplementary pay for the edu- 
cation of their children. This is the system of Great 
Britian and the Canadas. The reports tell us that the 
system works like a charm, and without friction. In 
it there is no place for denominational jealousies, for 
each denominational school receives its just and 
equitable share. The parliamentary grants are dis- 
tributed per capita; the sum appropriated is propor- 


48 


fuiUre of the race's. 


tioned to the number of children in the school. There 
is no distinction, no favoritism ; each child receives 
from the State exactly the same amount every other 
child receives. The State says to the denominational 
schools : 4 4 Take your children and educate them for 

me, and I will give an equal sum to each child in 
your respective schools. And if you do this, you may 
teach them morals and religion in your own manner, 
and I will not interfere.” Hence all parties feel that 
the system is eminently just — that it is wise not to 
antagonize denominational education, but to utilize it 
and make it helpful to the State. 

When I was in London I visited the great Wesleyan 
Schools of Westminster. I saw, at one time, about one 
thousand Methodist children at play in the great Court, 
all of whom were taught morals and religion by Wes- 
leyan teachers, and for whose education the Wesleyans 
were receiving per capita parliamentary grants. The 
Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Church of England, 
and others, were doing the same kind of work, and 
were assisted by the State in the same way. We know 
that there is a provision in the present Constitution of 
Georgia against this. Irreligion, infidelity and secta- 
rian jealousies put it there. And it was put there under 
the mistaken notion that a system like the British and 
Canadian smacks of a union of Church and State. No 
mistake can be greater. State and Church are united 
when the State adopts some one form of religion as the 
religion of the State, and grants to it exclusive, or, at 
least, special privileges. But are not Church and State 
united in England I they are. But her present school 
system is a heavy blow to that union j it is the begin- 


PVTXJPE OP THE PACES. 


49 


ning of the divorce between Church and State ; it is 
the prelude to Disestablishment. It is a great conces- 
sion to the non- conformists. It is a voluntary surren- 
der of power on the part of the great and overshadow- 
ing Establishment. It is a yielding to the rights of a 
very small minority by a very large majority. The 
State, whose established religion is the religion of the 
Church of England — a Church wanting only a small 
fraction of the entire population — surrenders to the 
other Churches the right to set up their own denomina- 
tional schools, to teach the children in them morals and 
religion, and to have their share of the parliamentary 
grants. And the Government claims and exercises no 
right of oversight or interference in the religious teach- 
ing and training of the schools. It recognizes the right 
of the citizen to educate his child according to the 
tenets of his own religious faith, and to have a part of 
the revenues to which he has contributed. In her 
public school system there is an absolute separation of 
Church and State ; it is civil and religious liberty in 
its last and truest analysis. And this is in monarchical 
England ! This is in a country with an Establishment ! 
But in democratic Georgia, in a country without an 
Establishment, in a land where there is no such thing 
as a union of Church and State, no aid can be given 
by the State to a school under the control of a religious 
denomination. The only aid she gives is to such as 
have no religion. Hence the State puts a direct prem- 
ium upon irreligion. Georgia’s Constitution in effect 
proclaims, “Have no religion, and I will help you. 
Have religion, and you shall not receive a single cent 
of the State’s money.” Hence in Georgia there is no 


60 FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


union of Church and State, hut there is a union of 
Irreligion and the State. It was this feature, before it 
was incorporated in the Constitution of the State, 
which Georgia’s great Senator, Robert Toombs, in a 
speech which I heard him make before the Trustees of 
the State University, in advocacy of my plan for the 
Unification of the University and the denominational 
Colleges, denounced as a relic of the darkness and bar- 
barism of the Middle Ages. 

However this may be, if we cannot change the Con- 
stitution of Georgia to adopt the British and Canadian 
system, let us, if the State lays sacrilegious hands on 
the Bible in her schools, withdraw from them, and take 
wholly upon ourselves the education of our children in 
our own Primary and Grammar schools. Let us foster 
our District High Schools, establish others, and make 
them feeders to our Colleges. Let us rally around our 
male and female Colleges, and secure to them ample 
and permanent endowments. Let the Baptists do like- 
wise for their High Schools, for their Colleges, and for 
their University. And let the Presbyterians, and the 
Lutherans, and the Episcopalians, and all the Evan- 
gelical Churches have Schools and Colleges of their 
own. Let us rally to the aid of the poor white children 
of Georgia, for whose free education nothing has been 
done beyond the very small sum granted annually by 
the State. Let us pray that a liberality, like to that 
lavished upon the blacks, may be directed to them. Let 
us, at the same time, cultivate the kindliest feelings 
for the colored people, and by all means in our power 
assist them where they need assistance. Especially let 
Southern Methodists redeem their pledges to the Col- 


FUTURE OF TIIE RACES. 


61 


ored Methodist Episcopal Church of America. In all 
our dealings with the freedmen let us be just, gener- 
ous, magnanimous. Let us strive to make them good 
citizens, and protect them in all their rights under the 
law — the law of Christ and the law of the land. Let 
us prove to them that we are their friends. Let us so 
act towards each other, that, in politics, we may 
divide not on racial lines, but on lines of State and 
national policy. Let us guarantee a free ballot to them, 
and let them guarantee a free ballot to all of their own 
race. And as the greatest obstruction to a free ballot 
in the South is that one negro will not allow another 
negro to vote as he pleases, let every colored man be 
free to cast his ballot without fear of harm to person 
or property, and without the dread of persecution, or 
social ostracism, or ecclesiastical ex-communication by 
his own x>eople. 

Let the ballot box be protected not only against ille- 
gal voting and false counts, but especially against 
bribery and corruption. Let every voter be free to 
vote as he pleases, without fear of loss of employment, 
or decrease of wages. A free ballot is impossible, if 
the workman is compelled to vote in the interest of his 
employer, to uphold a monopoly, or maintain a Trust. 
Of all the dangers to a free ballot and the stability of 
our republican government, the greatest is the use of 
money in the purchase of votes, and the threat of being 
thrust out of employment. If ever the liberties of our 
free America are lost, it will be because great and pow- 
erful monopolies have bought up and corrupted the 
laborer, or driven him to vote at their dictation. 
Wherefore let all, North and South, preserve the 


52 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


purity of the ballot box as the palladium of our liber- 
ties. Let the party which comes into power on the 
fourth of March, burying out of sight the animosi- 
ties of the late civil war and rising above all section- 
alism, eliminate the blacks from politics as the 
surest way of protecting them in all their rights under 
the law, and of binding the South, with cords of affec- 
tion that cannot be sundered, to the Union of States 
re-established at Appomattox. Let the incoming Pres- 
ident, neglecting no duty which he owes to the freed- 
men, seek by kindness, by forbearance, by generosity, 
and by magnanimity, so to conciliate and win over the 
whites of the South, that no sectional issues, but issues 
purely national, shall be the issues in all future 
Presidential elections. Let the South, offering no fac- 
tious opposition to his administration, meet with like 
spirit all his overtures for reconciliation, and second all 
his efforts to be the chief magistrate of a perfectly uni- 
ted people. And let us all, white and colored, South 
and North, earnestly strive to make all conflicts be- 
tween the races peaceable and bloodless. We have 
great hope that such will be the final result ; we have 
great faith in the power of the gospel of the grace of 
God to make them such. We look upon all that con- 
cerns the blacks of this country, from the first cargo 
of slaves landed in America to the present day, as 
parts of a great providential movement. All Africa 
stretches out her hands to God. The Dark Continent, 
with all its vast and hidden resources, is being opened 
up to the commerce of the world. From “Afric’s 
sunny fountains,” as of old from Macedonia, comes the 
plaintive cry, u Come over , and help us /” To the work 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


53 


of delivering tlieir father-land from heathenism and 
fetishism God is calling the blacks of these Southern 
States. We do not say that they will go over in a body ; 
but we do say that they are to be the chief instruments 
in giving the gospel of Christ to the benighted land of 
their fathers. It was for this they were brought 
here ; and for this, they have had their long tutelage 
in a Christian land. 

Wherefore let the work of Christian and sancti- 
fied education go on among the colored and among 
the whites. Upon the Methodist and Baptist 
Churches of Georgia, more than upon all others, God 
has placed this work. God help them to be faithful to 
the trust ! Let all the other Evangelical Churches 
of the State lend a helping hand. And in this work 
may we have the co-operation, the sympathy, the 
prayers, and the material aid of nil sister Evangel- 
ical Churches of the North. Let them, as in the 
past, continue to assist the blacks ; but let them not 
forget the destitute whites of the South for whom 
also Christ has died. If we leave the poorer whites 
to illiteracy and ignorance, the Catholics will soon 
take upon themselves the work of their education. 
Their attention is being directed to it. Borne is look- 
ing with anxious, longing eyes upon the neglected 
Southern fields. Her chief dignitaries and laymen 
quite recently met in convention and surveyed 
them. More recently the colored Catholics of Amer- 
ica assembled in the Capital of the Nation for the 
same purpose. They all regarded the Southern ter- 
ritory outside of the cities as a most inviting field, and 
are preparing to enter it in force. They are 


54 


FUTURE OF THE RACES. 


seeking to dot its waste places with schools, with 
seminaries, and with convents. They have the money 
and they have the will ; all they want is an open door. 
And this they will soon have unless the Evangelical 
Churches so pre occupy the ground that there will he 
no room for them. Wherefore, let us be up, and doing. 
Let us give the more earnest heed to the words of God, 
and lay them up in our heart and in our soul. Let us 
the more diligently teach them to our children with 
unwavering faith in a covenant«keeping God, and in 
his promises to the obedient. Let us write them upon 
the door-posts of our house and upon our gates ; let us 
iterate them, use precept upon precept, and call in to 
our aid all the helps we can command from the pulpit, 
from the Sabbath School, and from the best religious 
literature in books and periodicals. Then will the 
tabernacle and ark of the Lord move forward, and borne 
aloft upon the shoulders of the Levites, amid music and 
song, follow the cloudy pillar by day, and the fiery 
pillar by night, as they point the way to the land of 
rest. Then will our spiritual Joshua lead the embat- 
tled hosts of God’s elect safely over Jordan, and 
divide out to them by lot the promised inheritance. And 
then shall our days be multiplied, and the days of our 
children, in the land which the Lord sware unto our 
fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the 
earth. Amen. 


The Wesley Memorial Volume : 

OR 

WESLEY AND THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 

Judged by nearly one hundred and fifty writers, living or dead. 

EDITED BY REV. J. 0. A. CLARK, D. D., LL. D. 

Phillips & Hunt, New York ; J. W. Burke & Co., Macon, Ga. ; Southern 
Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, Tenn. 


There has never been so complete and rich a presentation of 
Methodism in any other book with which I am acquainted. — 
Abel Stevens , D. I). LL. D. 

A monument of the ripest thought of the Methodism of the 
century. — Christian Guardian , Toronto , Canada. 

The design is full of moral and historical interest. — W. E. 
Gladstone. 

The subject is of great interest, and many able and eminent 
men have contributed to it. — W. E. H. Lecky. 

It is a monument of ability, enterprise, and generous reli- 
gious enthusiasm. — New York Observer. 

One of the grandest books ever issued by the American press. 
New York Christian Advocate. 

The best compendium of Methodism ever published— Derby- 
shire Courier , England. 

The able and scholarly editor is the author of some of the 
best papers in the volume. — Presbyterian Review , Princeton , New 
Jersey. 

It is a work of surprising industry and expertness.— Wesleyan 
Methodist Magazine , London. 

We have never seen a book on Methodism equal to it for 
information and ability of writers. — The United Methodist Free 
Churches' Magazine , London. 

It is a memorial to the fame of Wesley unspeakably more 
precious and enduring than any material structure, though it 
were built of marble and adorned with every architectural grace. 
The Primitive Methodist Magazine, London. 

It groups the thoughts of a larger number of leading thinkers, 
speakers and writers on Methodism than has ever appeared in 
one volume — Nashville Christian Advocate. 

While all the essays are creditable to their authors, and to 
the communions they represent, some of them are unsurpassed 
for purity, strength, classic beauty and eloquence by anything 
in the English language.— The Methodist Quarterly Review . 



0 019 771 741 5 


ELIJAH VINDICATED: 

OR, 

TH-E ANSWER BY FIRE. 


By J. O. A. CLARK, D. ID. , LL. ID. , 

Southern Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, Tenn., and J. W. Burke 
& Co., Macon, Ga. 81.50. 


A magnificent portraiture of the weird old prophet. — William 
Gammell , LL. D., Brown University. 

We feel the present God, and arise to lofty adoration while 
we read Dr. Clark’s book. — Judge John T. Clarke. 

Exhausts the scholarship of the subject. It is learned, criti- 
cal, instructive, eloquent. — A. G. Haygood, D. D. 

Shows the broad and diligent research of the scholar working 
in the interest not of a limited class of learned men, but of the 
Cliuich and the people. — Charles A. Aiken , D. D., Professor 
Princeton Theological Seminary. 

What Dr. Hanna and Canon Farrar have done for Christ and 
his age, Dr. Clark has done admirably for Elijah and his 
times. — A. A. Lipscomb , D. J)., LL. D., Ex- Chancellor of the 
University of Georgia. 

The light of the divine presence has been diffused into and 
over its pages. It is one of the books men will not let die. — 
George John Stevenson , London , Literary Executor of Dr. A. Clarke 

A valuable contribution to our homiletic literature. — Zion’s 
Herald , Boston. 

As a study of the great Tishbite will claim a place in the per- 
manent literature of Christianity.— Nashville Christian Advocate. 

An exhaustive study of his theme — a welcome addition to 
our Christian literature.— James B. Angell } L.L. D., President 
University of Michigan. 

Earnest, devout and faithful. — New York Observer. 

Full of faith, intelligence and devotion.— Christian Advocate, 
New York. 

Both Jew and Gentile should read this remarkable work. — 
Moses P. Jacobson , Rabbi , etc. 

A high and deserved success— James 0. Murray , D. D., LL. D., 
College of New Jersey, Princeton. 

It is written devoutly, vividly, sometimes splendidly. A 
charming book for private aud family reading. Hearing it 
read on Sunday evenings, it seemed to give an elevation to all 
the visions of the night.— Charles F. Deems , D. D. LL. D. 


